Trial starts for man accused of shooting at cops' homes

Sep. 24, 2013

Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis (center) shows off earlier this year one of the guns police say was used in the shooting spree of law enforcement officers' homes in Sussex, Wicomico and Worcester counties. Lewis is flanked by Delaware State Police Master Cpl. Gary Fournier, left, and MSP Assistant Barrack Commander Tom Davis. Behind the three are officers who were involved in solving the case. / Daily Times File

Written by

James Fisher

The News Journal

GEORGETOWN – A sergeant on the Dewey Beach police force said the gunfire that woke him and his two young sons last December was “an extremely loud cracking, snapping sound.”

Even after Cliff Dempsey suspected someone had shot at his house, he said, he told his scared son it was only lightning. But the officer had already inspected damage to his rural Sussex County home.

“I turned the light on and opened up the curtain. That’s when I noticed the bullet hole,” Dempsey testified Tuesday during the trial of the Laurel man, 24-year-old David M. Watson, charged with attempted murder and other offenses in connection with the shooting. Not knowing if the shooter was still targeting the house, Dempsey said, “I immediately just dove on the floor and turned the light off.”

Prosecutors say Watson and an accomplice, Orrin Joudrey, 21, of Delmar, Md., went on a spree in December 2012, taking potshots with powerful firearms at homes that had marked take-home police cars parked beside them. In his opening arguments this morning, Deputy Attorney General Adam Gelof said Watson and Joudrey “share a love, if not an obsession, for weapons.” He was not explicit about the motivation behind the alleged crimes, but told jurors Watson “developed friends that had a hatred for law enforcement.”

Joudrey pleaded guilty to several felonies in August and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He is expected to testify against Watson, who has pleaded not guilty.

The trial’s first three hours of testimony involved two police officers whose homes are on Maryland’s Eastern Shore describing being woken up by gunfire and finding bullet holes in their homes. A Wicomico County deputy sheriff had it happen on Dec. 10, and then a Worcester County officer living in Wicomico County had her home shot at on Dec. 27, at about 3:15 a.m., she testified. Neither of them saw any suspicious people or vehicles nearby before or after the shootings.

Within an hour of that, Dempsey testified, his home near Trap Pond was shot at, with rounds coming through his young daughter’s bedroom. She was sleeping at a nearby family member’s house that night, and so wasn’t in the bedroom at the time, Dempsey said. No people were reported to be injured by any of the shootings prosecutors allege Joudrey and Watson did.